


insidious

by aquila (pipistrelle)



Series: drift dictionary [4]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mentions of Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:19:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2613119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/aquila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It would be easy to resent Mako's ruthlessness, if he hadn't dreamed her dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	insidious

Complaining about the tyranny of PPDC medics is a time-honored pilot tradition, but Raleigh quickly learns that their merciless pill-counts and insistence on obnoxious screenings are nothing compared to Mako.

She’s ruthless about the double dose of Metharocin they give him after the Anteverse. The pills make him sick to his stomach as often as not, and in the old days he and Yancy used to just ditch them -- one more way of laughing at danger, of running the risk just because you could.

When Mako catches him skipping a dose three days after he’s been released from Medical, he’s afraid of a lecture; instead she gives him a look of pure fury that turns his blood to ice. From then on she watches him like a hawk, and reminds him to take his medicine with a pointed politeness that hurts more than if she’d just haul him into the Kwoon and thrash him like she clearly wants to. The nausea and headaches he suffers do absolutely nothing to soften her, or make her let up her watch for even a minute.

It would be easy to resent it, if he hadn’t dreamed her dreams.

In her nightmares cancer stalks the things she loves. It devours her family, it feeds on Tamsin-sensei’s fire until she’s reduced to barely more than a skeleton. It even begins to eat away at the man who had been, for Mako, the embodiment of all strength, the pillar supporting the foundation of the world.

Every night after the Anteverse that bloodthirsty wasting demon comes for Raleigh while she stands over him with a fiery sword, screaming defiance.

In the morning she watches him carefully with bloodshot eyes, and doesn’t relax enough to start eating until she sees him swallow the capsule. He does it conspicuously, for her benefit; then, when she’s turned her attention to her plate, he slowly intertwines his fingers with hers where her hand rests on the table. She doesn’t look up at him, but she holds his hand in a grip like a vise, making it clear that she has no intention of letting go.


End file.
